JO. B. CREATIVE!: NARROW BOATING, HISTORY, FEMALE PIRATES, THE TRILOGY & OTHER STUFF

NARROW BOATING, MY FAVOURITE FARMHOUSE, SUFFOLK HISTORY, FEMALE PIRATES,

THE TRILOGY & OTHER STUFF

BOATING

A short while ago we had a few days on Dotterel, our narrow boat moored in Warwickshire. I needed a respite from trilogies (just the one!), although I confess I wrote the back matter for Book 2. (For the benefit of those who've just joined me, I published Book 1 of my epic western trilogy Alias Jeannie Delaney last summer and It's doing well. The story charts the life of a devastating and charismatic pants wearing cowgirl who's the fastest gun in the west and a great lover to both men and women).

Meanwhile hubby is preparing for the Birmingham Canal Challenge in May, hence our time on the boat. He had always wanted to take part in the challenge, which consists of narrow boats cruising the interesting and the lesser used navigations within and outside Birmingham. It's also a means of keeping the canal system open and used. We are both watery folk. I was brought up opposite the river Thames, and I swum the river as a kid and I've rowed since I was a teenager. Hubby loved books about canal cruising and took narrowboat trips with family and friends and adores it. We now paddle a traditional Canadian canoe and a rubber one. After I recovered from depression, pre pandemic, I told him to do the challenge. He'd looked after me long enough, time to go! So, we've been cleaning Dotterel, our boat, and son Tom and I will be joining hubby and crew for the challenge itself.

OCCASIONALLY HUBBY
GETS THE TILLER!

HISTORY

Meanwhile I've been researching facts about the Suffolk marshes. The story behind that: My dad's best friend, an army mate met during the war, owned a 17th century farmhouse known as Dingle on the edge of the marshlands in Suffolk (it is listed - Dingle Farm, which his grandfather bought after WW1.

Nearly every year when I and my brothers were young, my dad's friend rented the house to us for a week during the summer. I adored that house. Absolutely loved it! I'm only sorry we didn't own it ourselves. I'll be sharing a post about that in due course. I've got numerous photos of Dingle, including one of me as a little kid sitting on that doorstep with our friend's daughter. I've also been researching the history of Suffolk, and in so doing, came across two female pirates! Lady Mary killigrew and Margery Lambert. Of course, that sent me off on another tangent, so that's another blog post to come!

'Suffolk was also home to two of the most famous women pirates of the sixteenth century: Lady Mary Killigrew from Woolverstone and Margery, wife of Peter Lambert ...'

LADY MARY KILLIGREW

AND NOW ...THE TRILOGY!

I've sent off the back matter for Book 2 and final detail thoughts for the front cover illustration. I'm up to date now. The only real issue I have is my author website. It's great for layout arrangements initially, which I have done on my laptop screen, but when reviewed on phone layouts, which is what most folk look at, the layout is all over the show, and elements disappear. I then find them somewhere at the bottom of my design. So I began designing the layout based on phone usage and tried to find a compromise for both that and laptop screens, which seemed a good idea. That didn't really work either (all over the show again). Finally, in attempting to add a link to his blog - Jo B Creative - although I Googled how to do it, failed miserably. I still can't do it. Hubby told me I needed a computer geek - him. So I can have another crack at it with tech geek on hand. So hold onto your hats, folks - Book 2 will be available come the summer, a year after Book 1, which seems reasonable.

OTHER STUFF

General creativity and artwork is therapeutic for the old brainbox. I've been videoing artistic endeavours and uploading them to my YouTube shorts channel. Rather satisfying. Only mumble is that previously I was able to add music to the clips, but a short while ago I was getting 'upload failed' when uploading through YouTube itself. When I upload directly from Google Photos, I can't find how to add music. Technology, eh? Great when it works etcetera...

On that note I'll bid you farewell, for now...